


lysis

by tentaclemonster



Category: Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale), Little Red Riding Hood - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/F, Kidnapping, Lolicon, Non-Consensual Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:14:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29600205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentaclemonster/pseuds/tentaclemonster
Summary: The Huntswoman covets from afar.
Relationships: Huntsman | Woodcutter/Little Red Riding Hood (Little Red Riding Hood - Fairy Tale)
Kudos: 15





	lysis

The Huntswoman covets from afar. Secretly, slyly. There’s never a moment when she isn’t watching for a flash of red hair from the corner of her eye, watching for a slip of a body belonging to a slip of a girl flitting around the village and the forest that surrounds it. A happy girl, a lovely one. Pale skin gleaming, green eyes glinting, lips so small and pink that the Huntswoman wants nothing more than to lick her tongue across them before she plunges it inside and tastes the sweetness of the wet place they have the audacity to hide from her. 

The Huntswoman sees her even when her eyes are closed. She imagines Red looking back at her, smiling a smile for her alone. Giggling girlishly, baby teeth pressing a nervous bite into her bottom lip. She watches Red walk the path through the forest on her way to her grandmother’s house, basket in hand, and she imagines her hand in Red’s instead.

It would be easy, the Huntswoman thinks, to lead Red away. An offered treat, a kind word, a lie told. It would take little to convince Red to walk off of the path and through the woods to the Huntswoman’s house so deep within the thicket of pines and bramble that no one will find it unless they know where to look. 

No one would accuse her if the girl went missing. Not when there are animals and monsters and all sorts of beasts in the woods who would make for much better suspects than she. Not when the villagers still feel so sorry for her, being a young woman all alone in the world. Always motherless and an orphan in full after her father died and left her nothing but a cabin, a crossbow, and a profession that once was his.

It grows like an itch in her palms, the need to do more than watch. A heat rash under her skin that no one can see. A desire buried beneath muscle and tendon that she wants to claw at until it comes bleeding out all over her. 

The Huntswoman watches and watches and wants.

She wants so badly she thinks she’ll die if she doesn’t have.

*

Red disappears on a dreary day in autumn. 

The sky is a grey blanket out clouds, the air chill without quite being cold. It’s late afternoon and pure luck and happenstance that the Huntswoman is in the village to hear of it at all. 

She’s sitting in the pub next to the mayor who’s waylaid her return home by wanting to discus plans for the winter when Red’s mother comes through the door in a hurry. Her frantic eyes search the room until they come to rest on the mayor herself. She rushes over, apologizes for interrupting and explains how very urgent it all is. How Red left in the morning to visit her grandmother as she did every week. How they had plans to visit friends the next village over, plans that Red was excited about. She was supposed to be back hours ago, the mother insists, but she never came home.

The Huntswoman’s heart pounds as she listens. A twinge of worry worms its way through her veins. She imagines Red lost in the forest. She imagines her injured, ankle twisted from a fall. She pictures Red alone and afraid, sitting on the path with tears in her eyes waiting for someone to save her. The Huntswoman imagines being that savior. Excitement twists with the worry at the image and her pulse beats even faster.

The mayor tries to calm Red’s mother. Girls often get distracted, she tries to reassure. They’re forgetful. Always prone to taking off after some fancy or another. Red is probably at her grandmother’s house having a wonderful time and has just forgotten about the need to get home.

Red’s mother isn’t calmed. She insists Red wouldn’t forget. She was so excited, you see. She wouldn’t just forget to come home.

The mayor looks at a loss in the face of the distraught woman in front of her. Her eyes flit to the side, to the Huntswoman. Her discomfort is clear, as is her plea for help.

The Huntswoman doesn’t hesitate to offer it.

I could go by your mother’s house, she tells Red’s mother. It’s not so far out of my way home. 

The woman’s face crumples in relief. Will you really? she asks, the hope obvious in her eyes. I don’t mean to be a bother – 

You aren’t, the Huntswoman reassures her with a smile. Of course we all want Red to be safe. It’s not a bother at all.

The mayor’s own face shines with relief as she quickly nods. Yes, she agrees, of course, of course. It’s a wonderful idea.

I’ll just go now, the Huntswoman says as she stands. I’m sure the mayor is right. Red probably just lost track of time. Stay here and try not to worry. 

Thank you, Red’s mother says through a sob. I can’t thank you enough.

The Huntswoman smiles and pats her on the shoulder before she goes. 

She only turns to look back once to see Red’s mother sinking heavily into the seat she just vacated, her elbows on the bar top, head falling into her hands and shoulders slumping with worry as the mayor says something she’s sure is meant to be soothing into her ear.

*

The Huntswoman knows these woods as well as she knows her own body. 

Every tree may as well be her own limb, every berry on a bush a strand of her hair, every pine needle beneath her feet holding the impression of a thousand of her steps on top of them walked across two decades. Her father taught her everything he knew about the woods and the creatures that live in them. He taught her how to track them and how to kill them, how to butcher them and sell their meat to the village people for a price that’s fair to everyone. When he died, the Huntswoman took his job and his title and put the knowledge to use.

She just never thought she’d put it to use looking for a child, is all.

The path leading from the village to Red’s grandmother’s house is short, but winding. The Huntswoman used to walk it with her father when he visited the old woman for tea. She used to give the Huntswoman cookies, she remembers, made of oats and apples and spice from the city across the river. She would tell the Huntswoman how pretty she was and how much she looked like her mother, then her father would always clear his throat and they’d talk about other things while she sat silently by the kitchen window and listened. 

It was all boring, grown up things mostly. Weather and gossip about who was courting who. After her father died, the Huntswoman stopped visiting entirely. She’d only ever come for his sake anyway and saw no point to it if he was gone. 

This is the first time she’s walked this path in years but it’s no different now than it was when the Huntswoman was a child. She remains vigilant as she walks it for any sign of Red or the beasts that roam the forest. Her bow is in easy reach, her ears attentive, her footsteps silent as her father taught her to make them. The Huntswoman doesn’t find a single sign of Red on the path or any sign that anything ill might have befallen her until the old woman’s house comes into view and she sees the front door thrown open wide as if in invitation. 

The Huntswoman stops in her tracks and stares at it. A tingle runs up the back of her neck in a warning her eyes have already given her. She takes a moment to consider the bow on her back before she remembers her childhood visits to this home. How cramped it was and how tight the corners and how her gangly elbows would knock into them when she was going through the first growth spurt of her adolescent years. 

She pulls out the dagger at her side instead and resumes walking, her stride longer and her steps more careful. It’s only when she’s at the door that she smells it. Copper in her nose, the thick iron scent of blood that was as familiar to her as the forest. 

The Huntswoman takes a deep breath and exhales it silently as she slips through the opening of the door into a room lit by the dull orange glow of evening light spilling through the windows. 

It’s enough light to see by without trouble. It’s enough to make the blood on the floor impossible to miss. Dark droplets right by her feet that lead into a wet black puddle from which a long spread out smear grows in the direction of the kitchen like someone was cut by the door and fell before trying to crawl away. It’s too much blood to come from a child, the Huntswoman knows even before she steps further into the room and sees the pile of bloody clothes by the kitchen table. A torn dress, adult sized and saturated with something that isn’t water. 

A woman’s shoe lays discarded not far from it, tipped on its side like someone had tripped and sent it flying behind them and left it forgotten. Its mate is nowhere in sight.

The scent of blood gets stronger the deeper in the house she goes. 

The Huntswoman’s eyes leave the pile of bloody garments to rest on the door she remembers leads to the bedroom. Like the front door it, too, is cracked open. The Huntswoman is just as careful now as she approaches it as she was before. Her hand tightens on her dagger when she reaches it. It’s more of a squeeze to fit through the opening without pushing the door open further, but she manages and enters the bedroom without a sound.

She stops after barely a step in, her way already impeded by the corpse on the floor. 

It’s so close that she only needs to move her foot forward an inch for the tip of her boot to poke at it. It doesn’t move, doesn’t so much as twitch. Not that she expected it to. There’s a window on the far wall, the curtains open and letting in enough light that the Huntswoman doesn’t have to strain her eyes to see the whole of the dead thing before her. 

A wolf, but not a wolf. Too big to be a regular animal, its limbs too human for all that they’re covered in fur. It looks the way all dead animals look anyway. Stale and still, its fur already matted down and lifeless. There’s a bloody gash in its side that’s long since stopped bleeding, a puddle of blood gone tacky beneath it, and a blade lost in the mess of it all. The wolf’s all too human shaped hand lays limp near the handle as though it had pulled the blade out itself. 

A foolish thing, the Huntswoman thinks. It might have survived had it left the knife in.

It takes her hardly a second more to know what happened to the wolf, hardly a second to look away from it and have her breath catch in her throat at the sight of the little girl tucked away in the corner like she’s trying to make herself small enough to disappear. 

Red’s knees are pulled to her chest with her arms wrapped around them. Her dress has just enough clean spots on it that the Huntswoman can tell it was green once upon a time, but the rest of it is darkened to almost black, saturated by the same blood that’s splattered across her pale face. Her hair is in disarray, her eyes wide and wet with tears. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth and as bloody as the dead monster at the Huntswoman’s feet from how Red has nearly bitten clean through it.

The girl is a mess, but she’s an alive one. 

The Huntswoman should feel nothing but relief at the sight of her. She should be happy to have found the girl alive, perhaps even proud that she’d managed to save herself instead of needing the Huntswoman to rescue her. That would be the right response, the Huntswoman knows. The proper one. 

Instead, all she feels is heat. 

It burns through her like an arson, something covetous and ravenous opening its great yawning maw as she looks at the girl and thinks she’s never been more lovely than she is now in all of her vulnerable despair. 

Red pays the Huntswoman no heed but simply stares at the wolf as though she sees nothing at all, as though she hasn’t even realized yet that the Huntswoman is there. Even this the Huntswoman finds herself lusting for. How Red is so lost inside of herself, so unaware. The Huntswoman could do anything to her and perhaps she wouldn’t complain, wouldn’t make so much as a sound. She would be malleable, movable, as placid as a doll the Huntswoman could play with however she liked. A little toy with a heartbeat and skin made of warmth instead of cloth.

The Huntswoman watches Red for awhile more, the longing within her a growing until it turns to calculation. A desire melding until it forms into a plan.

No one knows she’s found Red and perhaps if the Huntswoman is careful no one will ever know. The old woman’s body is nowhere to be found, but her fate is as obvious as the bloody shreds of her clothing on the floor. Who is to say Red couldn’t disappear as well? Who would think the Huntswoman a liar if she said the girl had perished just as the grandmother had, both eaten alive by a monstrous beast?

The Huntswoman takes a deep breath and exhales before sheathing her dagger. She steps over the wolf and walks to Red on steady feet.

Brave girl, the Huntswoman says softly as she kneels in front Red, what a mess a you’ve made of yourself.

She reaches out a hand and pushes a lock of Red’s hair behind her ear. The girl doesn’t react which the Huntswoman thinks is just as well. It wouldn’t do for Red to fight her, to make a fuss. She slides her palm to Red’s face, relishes at the soft skin beneath her fingertips and how it smears the still wet wolf blood across her cheek. 

Let me get you out of these bloody clothes, the Huntswoman murmurs. 

It isn’t a request and she expects no answer. She doesn’t wait before setting to work.

It’s easier than it should be to get Red undressed. Red doesn’t resist the Huntswoman as she pulls the girl’s arms away from her legs. She doesn’t move as her buttons are undone one by one and her garments pulled gently from her body, exposing her lovely flesh for only the Huntswoman to see. 

When the Huntswoman’s hands linger on her newly bared skin, for how could they not, Red doesn’t flinch. Not when the Huntswoman’s fingers move across the pretty pink nipples of her flat chest and not when they drift lower down to Red’s belly and then lower still to the space of skin between her belly button and the private place that lies beneath. The Huntswoman has to force herself not to go further, to let her fingers slide between Red’s thighs and slip between her folds to feel the girl where no one has before. Now isn’t the time or the place – but later, she promises herself.

The Huntswoman takes Red’s soiled clothes and makes more of a mess of them than the wolf’s blood had done. She rips out the buttons she’d only just before gently slipped from their holes, sending them flying across the floor. She tears the dress so that anyone who finds it would not think it taken off normally but torn from Red’s body and then tosses the shreds of it carelessly across the room. Loath as the Huntswoman is to cover Red again, she stands anyway and goes to the wardrobe. All of the old woman’s clothes are far too big for Red, but the Huntswoman pulls out a sweater that will do for now and makes her way back to Red to put her in it. 

This the girl accepts as placidly as everything else, just as she accepts it when the Huntswoman lifts her into her arms and tucks her head beneath her chin.

Let’s get you home now, sweetheart, the Huntswoman whispers into Red’s ear. She presses a kiss to the skin behind it, daring to flick out the tip of her tongue to lick her there. The Huntswoman tastes the sweetness of Red like honeysuckle and cream, but it’s buried beneath the coppery twang of blood.

She steps over the wolf’s corpse on the floor and pauses only long enough to bend down and pick up the knife which she tucks into her belt. She makes her way out of the bedroom and then out of the house until she’s once again standing outdoors. Red shivers in her arms at the cold, the first reaction out of her all night, and the Huntswoman tightens her arms around her and presses another kiss against her skin.

Be at peace, girl, the Huntswoman says. You’ll be warm soon. 

The Huntswoman ignores the path in front of her leading back to town and instead cuts through the woods. Her feet move automatically as though they’ve taken this route every day, the way home from here still as ingrained in her as well as it had been when she was but a girl as small as Red and she walked by her father’s side on their way home after visiting the old woman.

It takes awhile to reach her house, long enough that the sunlight has turned to moonlight and it’s only the Huntswoman’s knowledge of her own home that lets her get through the door without stumbling. She puts Red gently down into her bed, adds wood to her fire and lights her candles all in the near dark. When she can see again, her heartbeat skips at the sight of Red curled up on top of her bed, her bare legs pale and thin against the furs. The Huntswoman longs to join her, to pull the sweater from her body and have her nude again, to do all the things to Red that she’s so often thought of doing – but she refrains. 

She takes the blanket folded at the foot of the bed and covers Red with it, tucking it around her small form. The Huntswoman allows herself to kiss Red on the forehead before sighing and reluctantly pulling away.

I’ll be back soon, the Huntswoman promises. Get some sleep while I’m gone, alright?

Red says nothing in reply and the Huntswoman smiles at her before turning and heading back out the door. 

*

The dark of night has truly set in by the time the Huntswoman returns to the village, but it’s kept at bay by the lanterns burning high on their poles along the cobblestone street. The village is quiet, empty. No one is milling about. The Huntswoman had schooled her face into a grim look before she set foot into village limits in case that wouldn’t be so, but she supposes the panic she had prepared herself for hasn’t happened yet at all. 

It makes sense, really. The Mayor is not a woman who deals well with panic or people making a fuss. She would want to keep Red’s disappearance quiet. She would trust the Huntswoman to handle it like she promised she would. The Huntswoman does not envy her for how difficult things will be when she finds out that the Huntswoman isn’t bringing Red back safe and sound after all.

All of the windows of the village buildings are dark, everyone gone to bed for the night, but for the pub at the end of the lane. There are lanterns in every window, the chimney billowing with smoke from the fireplace that’s usually cold by now with all the patrons gone home. It’s lit up like a beacon that the Huntswoman follows as though she is a moth flying towards a flame.

When she gets to the door, she makes sure she isn’t too quiet in opening it. She wants her entrance to be noticed – and it is.

Only the Mayor and Red’s mother remain in the pub. Both turn to the Huntswoman at the same time and the Huntswoman can tell immediately that for all the false grimness she’s schooled her expression into, the Mayor doesn’t understand at first. She smiles brightly, brilliantly, at the sight of the Huntswoman, so overcome with her joy and relief that it takes her a moment to realize that the Huntswoman is alone, no girl child in sight. The Mayor’s smile falters, her happiness turning to confusion, to question, then finally to dread.

Red’s mother gets there much more quickly. 

The Huntswoman only has to meet the mother’s eyes and swallow hard for the mother to know that her daughter isn’t coming home. The Huntswoman sees it in how her face shutters, how her already bloodshot eyes start to water, how she flinches and stumbles back a step as though the Huntswoman had loosed an arrow into her and her body has erupted in pain.

I’m sorry, the Huntswoman says in a grave tone as she approaches them, but I’m afraid something terrible has happened.

What is it? What’s happened? the Mayor rushes to ask but her face says the opposite of her words. It’s a pleading thing, silently begging the Huntswoman not to tell her anything bad at all. Red’s mother only stands there, silent and far too pale even for a woman who is fair of skin already. She looks dazed, like she might collapse at any moment.

The Huntswoman knows that this is the moment a better person would feel a sense of guilt for what they’ve done and what they still plan to do, that anyone else would likely feel shamed enough to give up their plans entirely. And truly, she is not ignorant to how Red’s mother feels. She knows that the woman is hurt. That she will be hurt more. That the Huntswoman is inflicting a wound on her that will never heal, no matter how much time goes on. Were she the mother of any other child, the Huntswoman would never have considered doing such harm to her at all.

But –

She isn’t the mother of just any child, she’s the mother of the one child that the Huntswoman wants and finally has within her grasp. No matter how grieved Red’s mother feels, the Huntswoman’s desire is greater. If there is any shame in the Huntswoman’s body, it’s hidden even from her. All that she holds within her is a burning want for the little girl tucked away in her bed and a niggling impatience to be done with this and return to Red where the Huntswoman will finally have her all to herself.

And so the Huntswoman does not falter. 

She does not hesitate or stumble as she spins her tale, weaving the truth in with dishonesty. 

She tells them that she went to the old woman’s house only to find the door wide open with nothing but blood and death to be seen once she stepped inside, that she’d then tiptoed to the old woman’s bedroom only to find a fell beast curled up on the floor like a beloved hound settled in for the night. She says nothing of finding Red or that it had been the girl who killed the wolf, but lies and says that she killed the monster herself while it slept, the creature none the wiser of the dagger coming down over its head until it was far too late to fight back.

It’s dead, the Huntswoman promises them. It will never hurt anyone again.

But the girl, the Mayor says in a faint voice, is there no way she could be alive? 

She looks sickened while Red’s mother sways on her feet. She still hasn’t said a word.

I found no bodies, the Huntswoman replies, but from the state of things – it was obvious she and her grandmother are both gone. I’m so sorry. I hoped I was wrong. I even went out and searched the forest until it became too dark to continue, but truthfully that was only wishful thinking on my part. No one who was in that house could possibly be alive.

The Mayor stares at the Huntswoman in shock, speechless in her horror. 

She’s saved from having to find out what she can possibly say by Red’s mother collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut. 

Though the Mayor had faltered in finding her words, her reflexes are fast enough to catch Red’s mother before she hits the ground. She grabs the woman and guides her to a chair to sit, her expression one of discomforted anguish as Red’s mother begins to sob – to wail – then to scream. Her hands go to her hair and start violently pulling and the Mayor has to grab her wrists and hold them together, forced down to the table in front of them, to stop Red’s mother from ripping her own auburn locks out from her head. 

I’ll get the physician, the Huntswoman raises her voice over the screaming. He’ll have something to settle her down. 

Please, the Mayor begs. She nods frantically. Yes, please – please hurry. 

The Huntswoman does. Though she still wants nothing more than to simply go home and be with Red, she knows this time is vital. It’s important not to arouse suspicion. It’s important that the villagers see her in these moments as nothing but empathetic, just as heartbroken and horrified as surely everyone else will be. 

The physician lives not far from the pub but it takes a few minutes of banging on his door for him to open up. He looks bedraggled, annoyed, but the panic the Huntswoman makes herself seem to be in stops whatever acerbic comment he might’ve had for being dragged out of bed. The explanation she gives him for why she needs him has him paling and rushing to get his bag of potions and tinctures before he follows her out the door.

By the time they get back to the pub, there are more lanterns lit in the buildings they pass. People are mingling outside of the pub who have heard the screaming and come to see what’s going on. They look at the physician and the Huntswoman in askance as they go inside, but don’t try to stop them. There are more people in the pub itself now, a whole crowd of those brave enough or curious enough to venture in. 

The Huntswoman can tell they’ve been told something of what has happened immediately by the looks on their faces. 

The physician pushes past all of them and makes his way to Red’s mother. He tries to speak with her at first, touching her shoulder then shaking her, before he shakes his head and seems to give up on reasoning with the screaming woman. He goes to his bag to pull out a bottle of something and a syringe and it takes seconds before he’s injecting whatever sedative that bottle contained. It’s longer before it actually works, before the screams hitch and then stop entirely as Red’s mother takes a shuddering breath and goes quiet, just shaking silently in her seat. 

The crowd in the pub vibrates with an anguished sort of energy, heavy and dark like a wet blanket thrown over your head. It’s silent for a moment before a man turns to the Huntswoman and tells her that the Mayor told them a monster had killed Red and her grandmother. 

It’s a question, she knows.

The Huntswoman takes a deep breath she doesn’t need, as though to steady herself, before nodding gravely. She tells her story again, this time to the crowd. She makes herself sound horrified by what she’s seen. 

When the people ask questions, she answers them. 

Women in the room cry openly. The men shift from enraged to at a loss, impotent in the knowledge that the beast they’re so angry with is dead and there’s nothing they can do to settle their score with it. 

Eventually the physician asks for help getting Red’s mother home. The blacksmith, easily the largest man in the room, offers to carry her and the three of them leave. The others linger for longer, talking about how horrible it all is and crying in their shared mourning. Some thank the Huntswoman for killing the wolf. Some express their wish that they could have killed it themselves. But eventually they all start to leave too until it’s only the Huntswoman and the Mayor left.

I don’t know how to handle this, the Mayor confesses. What am I supposed to do?

Just be there for everyone, the Huntswoman says. There’s nothing else you can do.

The Huntswoman puts her hand on the Mayor’s shoulder and squeezes before letting go.

I must return home now, it’s gotten so late, the Huntswoman says. Is there anything else I can do for you?

Oh, the Mayor says. She shakes her head and smiles tearfully at the Huntswoman. You’ve done so much already – gods, I couldn’t imagine how I’d have gotten through tonight if you weren’t here or what would have become of us if you hadn’t killed that animal. No, go on home. If anyone deserves a rest tonight, it’s you.

The Huntswoman smiles back at her and wishes her a goodnight before she turns and leaves. 

No one is lingering outside anymore when she exits the pub, all the curious villagers gone home, and the Huntswoman is relieved that there’s nothing to hold her any longer as she hurries out of the village and heads towards the woods on her way home.

Her heart pounds as she walks, the moon above her her only light. She doesn’t think Red will have gone anywhere, it doesn’t seem likely, but the Huntswoman can’t help but worry. The thought of losing Red now that she finally has her makes her chest ache with pain, her throat going tight with a panic far more real than the fake sort she’d put on in the village.

It’s a relief when the Huntswoman makes it home and walks in to find Red exactly where she left her, still curled up in bed with the blanket over her. Red’s eyes are closed now, the girl sleeping or more likely passed out from exhaustion. She’s lovely, always, but there’s a certain added innocence to how lovely she is in sleep. So vulnerable, so sweet.

The Huntswoman smiles at her slumbering form and gets ready for bed. She takes off her weapons and puts them away, strips off her clothes until she’s nude. She slips into the bed behind Red, pulling the blanket over her, and wraps her arms around the girl to bring her closer until she’s tucked against the Huntswoman as closely as she can be. 

The Huntswoman runs her hands over Red, up her legs and further. She palms the girl’s ass, slips her fingers between her thighs and lingers long enough to feel the heat. The Huntswoman’s cunt throbs at the thought of having Red, of stripping her down and seeing her up close, touching her everywhere. 

Tomorrow, the Huntswoman thinks. Let the girl sleep now. Tomorrow will be the first day of their new life together.

The Huntswoman couldn’t wait.


End file.
